EricWiberg

I am pleased how the prototype dolphin hance piece is coming along... I was able to attach the offset tail. Of course, working on the hance piece is a lot like an NFL game; 5 minutes of action in 60 minutes of time. At least I was able to start the assembly line process. Honestly, I am putting in 5-10 minutes of time on each hance piece, and then drying for at least 8 hours - depending on the thickness of the ApoxieSculpt coat.

Work is very slow, as college soccer season is in full swing... and there aren't many boating days left, so you have to enjoy them while you can! The last decorations I really have to make are the dolphin hance pieces. I have two drops in the railing at the aft of the ship, so I need four dolphins. I created two dolphin hance pieces over a year ago, but I created those free-form and I think that I can do a lot better. One of the key things that I have learned, especially by watching what Marc LaGuardia does, is to have a template. Months ago, I finally drew a template when I was designing the new head for SR 1671, and it made the process much easier. So I have been using templates whenever possible since then. I found a dolphin in a fountain at Versailles that I really liked, and I created a drawing (using the exact dimensions of the railing). I cut out a very rough template to check the fit, and was satisfied. Now the thing that I need most is patience, as I really have to let the ApoxieSculpt dry overnight, else all is ruined. You can see my original hance piece from last year (bottom of the picture), and the scale will be much better. The half-piece at top has been built up with two thin layers of ApoxieScuplt on the 0.5mm thick Evergreen template. I am trying to add some subtle details, like lines and fish scales... if they don't dry overnight - they are lost! The tweezers is holding onto a tiny 1mm thick disc glued to the body stock. This will allow me to offset the tail from the main plane of the body, like the foundtain dolphin at Versailles. It will realistically take me another 3-4 days of work to finish this first one - 15 minutes of work, then 16 hours of drying! However, once I have the process down, I will just build the other three hance pieces together, step by step. Note below the original template, which is one piece. I quickly found that it worked much better if I seperated the body from the tail, then added the tail at the end.

Marc, that picture is very helpful!

And there is TOW #12.. designed to fit into this small space.. Here is a broadside view, with the TOW's in no particularorder. Toward the stern, where the wales sweep up, I will use a 0.5mm thick backing plate (that matches the wale thickness) to sit the TOWs directly on the wale...

Ahhh, this summer weather and outdoor activities - too many to count! - are minimizing the time that I spend in the basement working on SR. Winter will be here soon enough.... A brief post, as I am wrapping up work on Trophy Of War #11... one more TOW to go.

Getting back to a regular schedule working on the ship now that camp is over... and I have two more Trophies Of War to do. The shields are identical, albeit mirror images of each other. I wasn't satisfied with my Evergreen strips as the edging on the shield that I first made a month ago, as some of the bends were severe and cracked the very fine strips at the bend. Sooo... I was having luck with copper wire, so why not try that? My goal was to create one quality bare shield and one set of quality edging, as I wanted to see if I could make resin castings from silicon moulds. To get the mirror image, I would just have to flip the shield and edging over to create mirror image moulds. I found that annealing the 26 gauge copper wire made it much more pliable. So my first attempt was to gradually work a piece of wire around the shield, one dot of cyanoacrylate glue at a time. I wasn't happy with the result... I just couldn't get the curves and bends that I wanted primarily because the shield was so difficult to grasp. OK... what if I glued a photocopy of the shield to a piece of wood and inserted tiny little nails all around the shield that I could simply wrap the copper wire around. How easy would that be? It was easier, but I still didn't like the result. Hmmm.. what if I glued a picture to a small ceramic plate (Subway tile left over from a remodeling project). And then I would just carefully work the copper wire around and douse it with Super Glue to hold it in place, millimeter by millimeter. The benefit here would be that only the copper wire was loose - no tiny shield to try and hold onto. This worked much better, and then I just held a lighter to the picture, and the paper and Super Glue instantly combusted, leaving me with my wire edging. Now, the copper wire edging fit perfectly over the Evergreen shield... I had my two parts for moulding. The last step was to make two sets of moulds, mirror images of each other. These are the first castings, not cleaned up yet, but the resin edging lays perfectly onto the resin shield. The remaing part of these two TOW's will be very easy, as the helmets/spears/axes are already made (done weeks ago when my armory churned out enough spears and axes for all of the TOWs). I am making a new mould of the shield on the left side; for some reason there are all kinds of air bubbles in the casting, but I didn't see any bubbles in the casting as it dried??

Camp is over and back to, and that allowed me to finish Trophy Of War #10.... only two more TOW to go, so the finish line really is in sight. This TOW is not quite done... I experimented with oversizing the sword so it could be seen easier. It looks too big to me when it is laying on the hull, so I will downsize the sword hilt and point. The various strips in the skirt appear to have large "buttons" (decorations) at the top at the waistline; I snipped off some of the really tiny nail heads that I have and applied a few. I will add a few more as shown in the St Phillippe monograph drawing, but frankly, who will ever notice that little detail? You may note that I did NOT choose to contour or shape the armored breastplate, as apparently shown by the subtle lines on the midsection of the drawing.... that appeared to be way too much work for little gain. I have referred to Marc's post #356 above multiple times, which is Hyatt’s description of the first Royal Louis in 1677. The apparent use of gold is extraordinary to me, and it makes sense that the first Soleil Royal would also be completely festooned with gold decorations, listons d' or, Trophies Of War, etc. I haven't painted a model in 45 years, let alone used an air brush, so there will clearly be a steep (but hopefully short) learning curve! And the menagerie grows...

I have finally carved out a bit of time to post.. I am in the middle of the world's largest soccer goalkeeper camp. 665 goalkeepers from across the world are in attendance over ten days! It's a fantastic experience, but I am lucky if I can steal a few minutes in the early morning to do a bit of work.... That being said... Marc, thanks so much for your post regarding the description of Royal Louis #1.... that just affirms that the first Royal Louis, and presumably the first Soleil Royal, were decorated... perhaps almost over the top?! That will help guide me as my hull painting and decoration painting gets nearer and nearer. I finished the 9th set (of 12 total) Trophies Of War. This TOW on the St. Phillippe monograph has a sword and bow - as well as the sheath for arrows - behind a shield. I tried to create a bowstring from #2 monofilament fishing line... the arrow sheath has a carrying strap drawn in the monograph, but I may not even add that, as two fine strands/strings look too fiddly to my eye. There is a tiny bit of cleanup left, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as the TOW project nears completion. I had a little fun with the bow. The monograph displays slightly tapered ends, so I tried to duplicate that with 28 gauge copper wire with some delicate sanding. Whether any human being would ever notice is beyond me, but I had fun doing it and it continues to stretch/develop my skill set. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Especially with tiny details, it is easier for me to use copper wire instead of Evergreen stock, as the copper wire is finer, yet stiffer than the Evergreen stock.

Thank you for the suggestions, Marc! I am completely unfmailiar with any and all painting techniques, but, I will just have to learn them by using my spare hull. I am pretty sure that since I have come this far... I will use your second approach suggestion. I like your suggestion of marking the outlines of the TOW, and then leave that bit of tape there during the hull weathering process. Question... one thought that I had was to glue a small, uniformly sized square/triangle/circle of Evergreen sheet (likely 0.13mm thick) on the back of the TOW's and then glue that bit of sheet to the hull? Now, I stll have 60 odd dolphins (as shown in the lower right of the photo) to apply around the upper gun deck ports, and then also some decorations above the additional gun ports that are higher up.... as well as fourteen decorations for the circular gun ports. That is a lot of detail painting, but I think that it makes sense to apply them BEFORE the hull painting, and then just come back later and paint these decorations. A lot of fiddly work there, but that sounds like a less work than somehow applying 80 odd tiny bits of tape to the hull so that I can peel those pieces off after hull painting/weathering... and of course, given that any pieces, there will be a number of onstances when glue smears out onto the paint job of the hull! One more question... the additional pieces of decor around any and all gun ports (dolphins bracketing gun ports, wings over gun ports, etc)... I am assuming those should be painted with the same color scheme and technique as you have suggested for the Trophies Of War, using the second approach?

The eighth set of twelve Trophies Of War are finished. This one was a it more complicated.... I had to make the torches larger at 2mm wide than than the 1mm wide proportions that were drawn in the St Phillippe monograph, as they would have been too ridiculously small for me to make! I incorporated a brand new material to make the tiny balls on the end of the torches... #9 shot from my bird hunting shells (I tried ApoxieSculpt at first, but couldn't make balls as smooth and round as lead shot was). For the torch flames, I found some old wire in my tool box and lightly tapped it with a hammer to try and make some broad "flames". Next, I cut individual snippets of wire and inserted them into the "torch" . The torch was a short length of 2mm round stock that I drilled a 1.5mm hole into to insert the flames, and then I split the round stock down the middle to yield half a tube. I then glued the half tube to 0.13mm sheet to give it some backing, then I simply cut the torch base out after the flames had been glued in. Finally, here are the previous seven sets of TOW... note that my first attempt was in the upper left, and then we move across the first row, and then the second row to end with my seventh attempt in the lower right. I am thinking down the road about how these would have been painted. My assumption is, even on SR 1671, that cost constraints would have prevented them from painted gold (let alone gold leaf). Perhaps a bronze color? I owuld think they need a bit more pop than yellow ocher.

Halfway through the Trophies of War collection... again, these TOW will decorate the spaces between the middle deck gun ports. First, the fifth set is completed. You may notice subtle differences, such as the size of the helmet plumes, etc. as I experiment to see if something that I prefer more can be applied to the next sets of TOW (and no one will ever notice the slight differences as the TOW's will be displayed on opposite sides of the ship). I added one set of tassel strings to every flag - not two tassels as in the St Philippe monograph drawing - just to see if I liked it. Frankly, they are so tiny (2# test monofilament), I doubt anyone will ever notice them. Oh - and flanking on each side are the original TOW sizes that I made for this symbol; I decided they were way too small. And then I finished one of the sixth set TOW's.... this took a lot of work on the blacksmith shop, but I created a stockpile of arms for the remaining TOW's as well.... I know that I benefit from having jigs if I am making multiple copies of something. So, to make the axe blades appear consistent, I didn't have a jig, but I simply glued photo copies of the axe blades to flattened copper wire, and then just cut them out with a blade.

Well, I wasn't going to post today, as I have finished only one (of two) of the sixth set of the Trophies Of War; but I received a package in the mail and am very excited! So TOW first... here is the result... about 95% completed. And here is what I was trying to emulate.. by the way.. are those tassels on the end of the flags really a detail that would somehow have been carved in?? I tried, and made some tassels from 2# test monofilament fishing line. It was actually very easy to do, but they looked so fragile, and... it just doesn't seem realistic to me that somehow tassels would be carved from wood and somehow dangle like they are in the St. Phillipe monograph! I had several hours of time in the early morning, and this TOW really flew by. First, because it was the sixth one and the practice really helps, and second, I had already made the flags and some other minor parts. I did scrap my first attempt, as it was just too small for my liking (I make a photocopy from the St. Phillipe monograph, which is 1:24 scale, and shrink it down to 1:96 scale for my model). I wanted a bigger helmet and fluer de lis! Minor things to note... #1, I was frustrated at trying to make perfect rings from Evergreen, so I finally used 24 gauge copper wire that I wrapped around a 5mm drill bit and soldered the ends together. #2, the helmet is not my usual effort of Gorilla Glue (which I have been using to get a domed, 3D appearance). but is a resin cast of a tiny helmet that is on the Heller kit quarter galleries. #3, I used a paper thin sheet of ApoxieSculpt for the plume. Here is a picture of the helmet and the resultant resin cast - which I like better than Gorilla Glue, at least in this instance. And now the mail.... my cannons and gun carriages from Kris/Skutznik in Poland arrived! The kit barrels are ostensibly 24#, 18#, 12#, and 8#. After first finding out about Kris on Nigel's (NMBROOK on SOS) Soleil Royal build log, I ordered 110 barrels in 36#, 18#, 12#, 8#, and 4# sizes... I also ordered 30 gun carriages of appropriate size for the cannon that will be visible on the upper deck (I will use the kit carriages for the lower deck). I am very pleased with the barrels from Kris; the Heller kit barrels are incredibly detailed, but... the "but" is that I would have to glue them all together and builk them up somehow (likely as Hubac's Historian did). Now, I don't have to do anything but paint them, and I have the precise barrel lengths and bores that I wanted... you can see how the barrels from Kris maintain their beefiness compared to the kit even as the barrels go down in size. And the gun carriages are extremely detailed already... with wedges in the wheel axles, and even a quoin. So as much fun - and time spent - as I am having making my own Trophies Of War, I am very happy to get something like cannons and carriages that I won't have to sink all of that time into! Certainly there will be work to do on the carriages, but nothing like it would have been. Ohh - and I won't have to move the trunnions back for a proper fit of cannon to gun carriage, nor move the kit wheel axles either.

The 5th set of Trophy's Of War is completed... Up veeerryyy close, I can still see things that I am not happy with. The resin casting in the center was made from a head on on of the kit quarter gallery pieces, but it just doesn't show precise features at this scale. On the other hand, when you zoom out to a normnal viewing distance... it doesn;t seem to matter. The TOW in the center is what I was trying to create... I think my technique for making the flags was helpful (roll ApoxieSculpt out into paper thin sheets and then freeze it). I also used some 8# cannon pieces from the kit to make the cannon barrels. Here are the various pieces before assembly - minus the tiny fluer de lis that are on the flag poles and the crown.

Here are the four (mostly) finished Trophies Of War (out of thirteen total TOW). I decided that I need to learn how to make flags next, as three of the TOW have flags like this... I can't remember what video I saw on YouTube, but a modeler was making a WW2 tank in 1/32 scale, and he made tarpaulins to cover parts of the tank. He didn't show how he made them, but I figured that ApoxieSculpt could be rolled out paper thin. I soaked my roller in ice water, which is something that Doris said she did, and it seemed to help. The flags need to be approximately 5mm x 4mm in size... And the first practice attempt at wrapping the flag on a staff and trying to create tassels on the edges of the flag... it probably will help if I put the tiny flags in the freezer for a bit before I attempt to work them, as that will make the flags stiffer and less pliable. Regardless, it looks like this technique of making flags will work for me, and the task will be much easier than I thought.

Phew... this 4th Trophy Of War has been the most complicated yet. This is what I ended up with, and paired with the drawing that I was trying to emulate. Without a doubt, wrapping the "rope" around the anchors was the most difficult part of this exercise! I still have to add a tiny piece of rope to the upper left anchor eyelet, but I want the glue bonds to dry thoroughly first. I continued my extensive use of copper wire, tapping different guage sizes into flat sheets to make the flukes, the decorative bands on the shield, the fletching of the spear, etc. I am finding that in some situations, using copper wire is easier/faster than using Evergreen sheet or ApoxieSculpt. For example, several light taps on 28 guage copper wire made a plausible fletching on a spear. I manufactured all of the component parts for both TOW before assembling both together at the same time. My other TOWs followed a predicatable pattern... make the first set and then decide I can do better. I will NOT make this set over... I can live with this! And a parting shot from normal viewing distance.... yeah, I can live with this first effort.